...For the Love of Fine Words.
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Saturday, October 26, 2013

The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

The
Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

A Few Thoughts…

On this poem:

Turning and turning in the widening
gyre

I think Yeats is the only poet I’ve ever come across to use the word ‘gyre’
in a poem. In falconry, a young bird is trained to obedience; to essentially
disregard its natural instinct, and return to the falconer. ‘Gyre’ indicates a
circular or spiraling movement, akin to what you might witness in a whirlpool
or twister – something that can be neither controlled nor tamed, something
inherently dangerous.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot
hold

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe, the eminent Nigerian novelist, used this
line as the title of his best-known work. One of the main themes of the book is
the disintegration of traditional African values leading to social and cultural
vitiation.

The Second Coming…

…a vast image out
of Spiritus Mundi…

…And what rough
beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem
to be born?

The Second Coming traditionally refers to the
return of Christ. Spiritus Mundi is a reference to Yeat’s belief in a ‘Spirit
World’ that transmits universal symbols to the minds of those receptive to
them. Yeats in his ‘Second Coming’ foresees not a triumphant return of Christ,
but rather the start of a dark reign.

On a
personal note:

I’ve always thought this a memorable poem, and an
interesting one, but rather obscure – a perfect poem for literary discussion. An
attempt to understand it would require delving into Yeats’ mysticism, his
philosophy, use of symbols, and his reaction to the events that were roiling
his times, among them the Russian Revolution and the First World War.

My favorite line in the poem is this one –

The best lack all
conviction, while the worst

Are full of
passionate intensity

A perilous state for a society to find itself in at
any time. These words keep echoing in my mind when on a sudden whim I decide to
follow current events; but on to less frightening matters - Happy Halloween!